“When the moon hits your eye, Like a big pizza pie, that’s amore. When the world seems to shine, Like you’ve had too much wine, that’s amore!”

Its meat free Monday lazy green people! And what better way to celebrate than a big slice of delicious Vegan pizza?! Providing you’re not too greedy with the slices, missing out the cheese makes this a much healthier version of the old classic!

Now, at first glance this doesn’t seem like a very lazy recipe, making your dough and sauce from scratch takes time. But alas! The quantities are nice and big, so once you have done the hard work, you can freeze the dough and pizza sauce for a night when you don’t fancy cooking at all!

Olive, sundried tomato, pinenut and basil vegan pizza

Ingredients

For Pizza dough:

• 250g strong white bread flour
• 250g plain white flour (or whatever you have to hand, rye flour is my favourite)
• 5g powdered dried yeast
• 10g salt
• 325ml warm water
• About 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 handful coarse flour (rye, semolina or polenta), for dusting

For topping:

• Tin of chopped tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons of tomato puree
• 2 teaspoons oregano
• 1 tablespoon of Pinenuts
• 4-6 Sundried tomatoes sliced into halve
• A handful of Fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon of Olives
• Chilli or garlic oil to drizzle

Method

The pizza is made in 3 stages:

1. Firstly let’s get cracking on the dough. In a bowl, mix the flours, yeast, salt and water to form sticky dough. Mix in the oil, and turn onto a clean work surface; kneading for about 10 minutes until nice and smooth. Shape into a round ball, and leave to rise in a bowl, covered with a warm wet tea towel; until doubled in size.

2. While that rises, make a start on the sauce. For this, gently simmer the tinned tomatoes and puree in a sauce pan on a low heat for about 30 minutes; stirring regularly. Once the red colour has lightened and the sauce has thickened up, stir in the oregano and set aside to cool.

3. Preheat the oven as high as it will go. Take a lime-sized piece of dough and roll to your desired pizza shape and thickness (I like them thin and crispy!). Dust a rimless baking sheet with coarse flour, lay the dough on it, smooth over your sauce; about a table spoon or two. Now is the fun bit! Sprinkle over your olives, sundried tomatoes and olives and bake for about seven to nine minutes. Finish off with fresh basil leaves and a drizzle of chilli oil. Buon appetito!

Roll up balls of any dough you have left over, and freeze along with the leftover sauce. Now you have a couple more lazy meals ready for next time you fancy pizza – no leftovers necessary!